PRESENTATIONS FROM THIS EVENT

"Our mission is to dispel this myth that Tokyo is this crazy expensive place."

From humble beginnings, tech entrepreneur Chris Kirkland's website, Tokyo Cheapo, a travel and culture guide dedicated to life in Japan on a budget, has grown to a monthly readership over 150,000. From getting to and fro, to staying in rock-bottom-priced accommodation, even to finding love, Tokyo Cheapo covers it all on life in Tokyo on the cheap!

"When I see Amanojaku, what I see is a truly and perfectly Japanese interpretation of world music."

When Gregorio Rabuñal witnessed a travelling Japanese Taiko Drumming performance as a young boy living in Bueno Aries, Argentina, little did he know that the drumming seed had been planted in his mind. It was only later in life as a young man when the seed took root, eventually bringing him to Japan to study under one the Taiko world's greatest pioneers, the very one he had seen as a small boy.

Student of "future master" Sou Fujimoto, fellow architect Marcello Galiotto talks about the process of not only interpreting an abstract concept architecturally, but pushing it beyond its architectural limitations. In this highly sophisticated presentation, Galiotto shares his insights in combining imaginative references of architecture, nature, and structure into real living spaces.

SuperDeluxe's creative director Ryu Konno takes us on his monthly tour of events at the venue, reviewing the last few events, and offering up a preview of what's coming up. As always, he kicks things off with a few images describing what he's been up to of late. (in Japanese)

Japan International Cooperation Agency volunteer and junior high school teacher Satomi Oguchi, shares her experience volunteering in Nepal as an environmental educator.

She sheds light on some misperceptions about Nepal and offers her fellow Japanese and the PK community a chance to heighten our interest in the Himalayan kingdom, which is also Asia's poorest country. Oguchi experienced the recent earthquakes there and shares how the Nepalese were quick to respond.

In referring to Japan's intrinsically and simultaneously traditional and futuristic duality, Woodbury University architecture students on a Japan study away trip ask, "are the shrines and neon places separate from each other?"

They draw attention to architectural examples they discovered in their time in various Japan cities that highlight the focus of their studies, shadows and light.

Photographer Yuki Aoyama hit it big when his father-daughter portaits hit the net. Salarymen and fathers are often portrayed as serious, but Aoyama's shots capture the light-hearted side to the family dynamic in Japan.